Awesome interview on WTF today. I don't think I've ever heard a director speak so openly about their craft. They always seem to be hiding some mystique about it, but Harmony is very straightforward about the why's and hows of the way he does things. Makes a great argument for his use of celluloid at the end, too.

He essentially regurgitates the principle elements of film vs. video that are found in every conversation these days, referencing the popular production perception of film making better use of time (which is so, so, so absurd. who's making these time sheets?), film burning money and causing people to focus (oh fuck off), film as magic (classic QT quote), analog having dissonance true only to itself and evoking Korine's fantastic lifelong psychological journey that can be described as he was born in film and he wants to die in film.

Harmony Korine Says His Chris Cunningham Collaboration 'Mitch Poppins' Might Be Released This Yearvia The Playlist

As we await to see which feature film Harmony Korine shoots this year — he's deciding between "The Trap" and a new, "Scarecrow"-esque picture he's recently written — there's still some stuff in the archives to see the light of day. And one of them may finally surface this year.

Last summer, Korine told Marc Maron about a 20-minute short he made in the early 2000s with acclaimed music video director Chris Cunningham (Björk's "All Is Full Of Love," Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker"). Titled "Mitch Poppins," Korine said it's about a man with Tourette's Syndrome whose tic takes the form of breakdancing, and noted that while it wasn't finished at the time, he was waiting for the moment to release it. And it might soon be arriving.

Chatting with The Guardian, he told the paper "Mitch Poppins" might be released this year...but we'll see if that's the case.

I can see that. Korine and Cunningham have similar meta-thematic sensibilities, even though they are totally different in so many ways. I don't know why Cunningham never panned out. I really thought he was the next Kubrick. Maybe he still will be. If I had one director to give a hundred million dollars to to make a movie it would be Cunningham.

Directing Rihanna‘s sexy “Needed Me” video and an ad for Supreme featuring his rapper pal Gucci Mane, the one thing Harmony Korine hasn’t done this year is gear up production on a new feature film. Initially, his super-promising-sounding project “The Trap,” that had Idris Elba, Benicio Del Toro, Robert Pattinson, Al Pacino, and James Franco set to star, was slated to lens earlier this year, but there were delays, and the director started losing interest in the movie, thus pivoting toward writing something new, something he described as “a cross between a Cheech and Chong movie and…‘Scarecrow.’ ” Now, not only does it look like that latter picture is next, but Korine has also lined up another very provocative project.

During a Q&A last night at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, Korine revealed he’s working on an adaptation of Alissa Nutting‘s controversial and acclaimed novel, “Tampa.” The 2013 book caused no shortage of scandal, with the story explicitly detailing a teacher’s journey in seducing her 14-year-old student. It’s pretty charged material, so much so that Slate editor Dan Kois wrote, quite prophetically it would seem, “someone hire Harmony Korine to make the movie, ASAP.” Here’s the book synopsis:

Celeste has chosen and lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web. Jack is enthralled and in awe of his eighth-grade teacher, and, most importantly, willing to accept Celeste’s terms for a secret relationship—car rides after dark, rendezvous at Jack’s house while his single father works the late shift, and body-slamming erotic encounters in Celeste’s empty classroom. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress of pure motivation. She deceives everyone, is close to no one, and cares little for anything but her pleasure.

Tampa is a sexually explicit, virtuosically satirical, American Psycho–esque rendering of a monstrously misplaced but undeterrable desire. Laced with black humor and crackling sexualized prose, Alissa Nutting’s Tampa is a grand, seriocomic examination of the want behind student / teacher affairs and a scorching literary debut.

That’s right up Korine’s alley of provocation, and he suggested that “Tampa” might be headed to HBO, which would mark a new turn for the arthouse filmmaker. But we’ll have to see how that shakes out.

Next for the director will be the aforementioned Cheech-and-Chong-meets-“Scarecrow” script, which he’s aiming to shoot in south Florida, though there’s no word just when cameras will roll. After that will be either “The Trap” (which hopefully he hasn’t grown tired of) or “Tampa,” and we’ll follow whatever Korine decides to go with. And in case you’re counting, including “Spring Breakers,” this will mark four movies that Korine will have set in Florida.

Matthew McConaughey Will Be Harmony Korine’s ‘Beach Bum’via The Playlist

For a while now, Harmony Korine has been teasing that he’s been working on a new script which would likely be his next movie, bumping back his previously planned “The Trap.” As you’ll recall, that film was set to star Idris Elba, Benicio Del Toro, Robert Pattinson, Al Pacino, and James Franco, until an issue with one of the cast members — who Korine has refused to name — essentially kiboshed everything. The filmmaker cooled on “The Trap” and started writing something new, and many thought it was the adaptation of “Tampa,” but it’s something else entirely, with a big A-list lead actor.

Matthew McConaughey has signed up to star in the stoner comedy “The Beach Bum.” The film follows the misadventures of the rebellious and lovable rogue Moondog, who I presume is not based on the experimental musician, though I can’t imagine that name is a coincidence either. Korine has previously described the picture as “a cross between a Cheech and Chong movie and that movie ‘Scarecrow,’” which, through Korine’s cracked lens and McConaughey’s breezy vibe, should be something pretty fun.

Production will get underway in July, so we’ll likely see this on the festival circuit in 2018. As for “The Trap,” Korine has said it’s still in the works, and could be his next one…after this.

what happened was i decided to learn about Neon. so i read this and barely learned anything actually.

but now i'm aware that Korine's The Beach Bum will be distributed by Neon. imdb lists the movie in post-production. Korine wrote/directed, Benoît Debie is behind the camera again. Debie also shot Audiard's The Sisters Brothers btw